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Max Liu

@maxjliu.bsky.social
412 followers 467 following 496 posts

Freelance writer

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Reposted by Max Liu
Anakana Schofield @anakanaschofield.bsky.social · 4h
While we are all up a tree waving Canadian pride about Anne Carson are we going to address how little coverage the media in Canada ever gives to bold, inventive, poetic work? Because the elephant is galloping freely through the pastures getting off very lightly & it's pissing me off.
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 4h
It's still too hot
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Reposted by Max Liu
Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 19h
“If you don’t like public executions just don’t watch it” says the crowd trying to ban drag shows and books
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Prynne saved poetry for me." Helpful (and v enjoyable) Ryan Ruby piece www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/10...
theparisreview.org
Prynne’s Last Poem by Ryan Ruby
October 7, 2026 – “Prynne never seemed to belong to a bygone era; his poems were always ultracontemporary, unless they were of the future.”
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Anxiety dream where the fall out from Man City verdict is so complicated that Premier League is suspended for rest of 26/27 and international break extended so England alternate between playing Croatia and Czechia every other weekend till May
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I don't get coffee shops that close at 4pm. Yes yes overheads but that is the exact moment when I need strong coffee to see off the death in the afternoon that every day makes me feel like evening and tomorrow morning will never come. I can't be the only one
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hey thanks v much for this. Definitely time for me to start reading him again
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Oh really, I didn't know that... I haven't read anything after Europe Central but I remember being blown away by Whores for Gloria and The Royal Family. I want to read the boxset.
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hell yes
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
DeLillo, Kelman or Rankine please
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Reposted by Max Liu
London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 06/10/2026
On the podcast: @naomiaklein.bsky.social and @astra.bsky.social join @adamshatz.bsky.social to discuss what fascism looks like in the age of AI, and why we have reached a point where tech billionaires declare they are ‘unapologetically on Team Humanity’. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
Fascism in a time of AI
Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 6 October · 54min
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Brent Shepherd (he/him) @shepcatzero.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Colson Whitehead. Harlem, 1986. A work of fiction, yes, but a prescription for our times, a broader interpretation of “termination for cause.”
From COOL MACHINE by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday, 2026):

Last week Carney had fired Jerome the sales associate after he admitted that he had voted for Reagan, not once but twice. “What this country needs is a good kick in the ass, you know.” Carney showed him the door. What message did it send to the community to hire people of such low character?
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
When i lived here six years ago this was a Planet Organic. Packet ramen eating has triumphed over wellness
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Reposted by Max Liu
Sam Sacks @ssacks.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For National Poetry Day "Jamesian" By Thom Gunn (From 'The Man with Night Sweats,' which has just been reissued by FSG.)
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It's National Poetry Day and I still like this poem v much - by an actual living poet
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 01/10/2026
The poet, translator and physician Dr. Fady Joudah will give this year’s Edward W. Said London Lecture, titled ‘Notes on Solidarity’, on 15 October at the Royal Geographical Society. Tickets here: mosaicrooms.org/edward-w-sai...
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Reposted by Max Liu
RRRMMM @strongmisgiving.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For National Poetry Day, Frank O'Hara
Poem [“Lana Turner has collapsed!”]

By Frank O’Hara
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
lana turner has collapsed!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
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Reposted by Max Liu
Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
‘The Sixties never happened in Blackburn.’ www.ft.com/content/4277...
ft.com
Deep into the Sixties: Britain 1965-66 — David Kynaston’s latest vivid history
The historian richly evokes the texture of a decade that was often dubbed ‘swinging’ — but was, for many, a time of unsettling change and death of tradition
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Anyone else read this? I really struggled and would like to think I'm missing something. His films are eternal, his prose dead on the page. Some things are better left in the archives
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
He probably just wants them to pay for image rights
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Two mins before filing piece I've fiddled with for two days: "Now I see how I could make this much better."
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Reposted by Max Liu
Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This story brought me back to Kara, one of the mothers in my book, There Is No Place for Us. She was homeless with her four kids while driving for DoorDash. They had to pee in bottles so bathroom stops wouldn't make her late. After gas, she earned $6.50 an hour—75 cents less than the minimum wage.
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Reckon I've seen more Man City shirts today than on any day during their decade-and-a-half of stolen success
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Good Emily Witt critique of an artist whose work I've found original, perceptive and underwhelming at various points over the the last 20 years www.newyorker.com/culture/crit...
newyorker.com
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Clare Bogen @clarebot.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
www.ft.com/content/fad8...
ft.com
Fitzcarraldo – inside the chicest publisher on earth
Jacques Testard is transforming our reading habits, one blue book at a time
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Season 4 complete. Iowa Writers' Workshop triggering
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Samantha Asumadu @samanthaasumadu.substack.com · 22/09/2026
'New analysis on UK media: British media is not delivering the news to its readers. They are delivering an agenda. The seven days after Channel 4 filmed James Orr are a damning indictment of the British press. Orr is a Cambridge associate professor.' via @newscord.org
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I thought this v good. I've struggled with some politically astute/stylistically null books recently but that doesn't apply here - AJ can write. Using Ernaux, Houellebecq, more to look at the mess we're in today. I found it revelatory and inspiring
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Damn. Left my laptop with all my work on it in the library while I went out for lunch and nobody stole it
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Am reading The Netanyahus again as prep for this and, while not my favourite Cohen due to the letters and lectures, I just know with the truth of fiction that the depiction of the eponymous family is spot on
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
One of the reasons popstars today are sell outs is that so many of them went to private school
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Graeme Thomson @graemethomson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The sad fact is, as Ed Sheeran well knows, that this Macklemore business will not materially impact upon his career one jot. Of all the musicians I've met, I found Sheeran perhaps the most numbers conscious (those album titles are very intentional). He will have done his calculations.
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Lydia Kiesling @lydiakiesling.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Unbelievably pathetic capitulation to truly terrible people www.theguardian.com/music/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Macklemore dropped from Ed Sheeran’s US tour after ‘free Palestine’ speech
The American rapper will no longer support Sheeran’s US leg of Loop tour after comments at MetLife Stadium show
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Well now, this I am looking forward to
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"Rosalía’s audience: in general I take no comfort from these people." I felt exactly the same when I saw her perform in London. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Anne Carson · On Rosalía
We require heroism of our entertainers. We want them sacrificing themselves to a certain ultimate degree of input. No...
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Funnily enough I nearly had to come to Birmingham to see KV this weekend... BPB will be great!
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Went to see Kurt Vile. Awesome cosmic autorock. Everyone still loves guitars. Hooray
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This is two weeks from today (22/9). Munir Hachemi is an entertaining speaker (I've talked to him before so this is episode 2) on writing, writing about writing, translation and he's funny. Both of his novels from @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social are excellent in different ways. Come down
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Reposted by Max Liu
Helen Barrett @helenbarrett.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
So engrossed in this I've missed by tube destination by three stops.
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Marnie = Allison Williams
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
One thing I recall from that time was snide comments about my review of the Empathy Exams because some underpaid pic editor put a pic of the Girls cast with it. Not only does Leslie Jamison write about Lena Dunhham in that book but now turns out Marnie bought the film rights to the EEs
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I'm rewatching Girls and, midway season 3, I will say it has aged well. Could be wrong but I think the world it chronicles came and went v quickly. Episodes released 2012-14 feel more like stuff I was reading and reading about 2008-2010, perhaps because TV plays catch up with lit
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Reviewed Sebastian Barry's novel The Newer World for this week's @ftweekend.com. It's as accomplished as you'd expect, if a little lyrical for my tastes. The big question is whether he should be writing this story in the first place and I don't really have the answer www.ft.com/content/a442...
ft.com
The Newer World — Sebastian Barry’s novel of the Black American slave experience
Set in the mid-1800s, the Irish author’s narrative blazes with an authenticity and poignancy that mitigates any risk of ‘cultural appropriation’
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Pasta alla Norma
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Reviewed Sebastian Barry's novel The Newer World for this week's @ftweekend.com. It's as accomplished as you'd expect, if a little lyrical for my tastes. The big question is whether he should be writing this story in the first place and I don't really have the answer www.ft.com/content/a442...
ft.com
The Newer World — Sebastian Barry’s novel of the Black American slave experience
Set in the mid-1800s, the Irish author’s narrative blazes with an authenticity and poignancy that mitigates any risk of ‘cultural appropriation’
021
Reposted by Max Liu
Anne-Marie Creamer @amcreamer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Excellent reporting from Channel4 news & Verbatim Media- more corruption from Farage & Reform caught on camera. Great to see James Orr & co, & dubious pollsters screwed. Bring in the police Reforms ‘popularity’ maybe based on more fictitious polling than we realised. 👇 youtu.be/aXut3s90rUI?...
youtu.be
Going undercover to expose Reform's secret donations plot
YouTube video by Channel 4 News
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
His work is in purgatory, where he said his dad's books went in the years following his death, but it will come out of there. In the meantime, you might be interested to read "Watford in China" from Visiting Mrs Nabokov
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Are there left-handed hairdressers?
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Max Liu @maxjliu.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Hallway" by Roy DeCarava from the Dulwich Picture Gallery American photography show. Mostly the usual names - Winogrand, Leiter, a whole room from Bruce Davidson's Subway - but this strange, painterly picture is among the highlights
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